


Pale as Milk

by Mitsuhachi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Grooming, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 15:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/456915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitsuhachi/pseuds/Mitsuhachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newly-together meowrails cuddling in the shower. Plot is for people who aren't me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pale as Milk

You aren't saying that you believe in anything so ludicrous as pity at first sight. But by the fourth or fifth week, you have to admit that you start to wonder. It's the fifth week of Nepeta messaging you every day, of her blithely showing up uninvited at your hive and you somehow never getting around to lecturing her on how inappropriate it is, of watching the little bird-bones of her wrist move and tearing more thin scars into your own palm to keep from reaching out because what if you hurt her? The day that you look up in your workshop and realize that there are four perfectly good robots laying around--not even counting the one you're fiddling with now--and you _still_ don't feel any particular need to start them up, haven't broken _anything_ for days (except for on accident, but that has pretty even chances of calming you down or just making you angrier, so you decide it doesn't count); that's the day you decide.

And because Nepeta is Nepeta, that is also the day she logs out of trollian and doesn't show up or log back in for four days.

It's awful. You don't know what you've done, what you've said that would cause her to shun you like this. You break every robot you've built up, and when you can't concentrate well enough to build more, you break other things. Your respite block is littered with the sharp-edged detritus of half-bows and glass shards and bits of twisted metal and building plaster from the time you put your fist through your wall. Aurthour starts going around with even more bruises than usual, careless ones that leave you feeling so utterly despicable that eventually you just lock him out of your room even if you know it upsets him. You're aaaaaalmost desperate enough to message Vriska, to see if she can help you track your wayward...friend down, except that you don't want Vriska anywhere near Nepeta and oh god what if she killed her?

You're thinking about that, nails digging long rips into the fabric of your sitting-bag, when you get a faceful of still-bleeding prongbeast corpse. It is EXACTLY as awful and disgusting as it sounds. You shove the thing off of yourself, trying to suppress both the instinctive urge to lick the blood off your face and the wholly civilized urge to scour your skin raw to get this stuff off of your skin. Forcing yourself to look past the way your skin is crawling as the blood dries on you, you lean forward and look around the enormous thing and it's. Oh.

It's Nepeta, finally, alive and not looking furious. Looking...smug, you think? Pleased with herself, at the very least. She's grinning up at you from behind the enormous corpse, covered in filth and blood herself.There are actual sticks poking out of the tangled mess of her long hair, and her bare arms are scratched all over from you don't even know. Thorn bushes probably.

There's a part of you that wants nothing more than to curl up in the heat of that smile and purr for days, because she's back, she's back and she doesn't hate you and she's here and... But you remind yourself what she is and tell yourself that you have to be firm with her. Otherwise, she might not respect your orders and disappear again. She could get hurt, even. That is unacceptable, and the thought lets you arrange your face into something a bit less giddy.

"Where were you?" you demand coolly. "You should know that I was quite cross at being unable to contact you." And just that fast, the smile drops. But you remind yourself that this is important and stand your ground.

Nepeta's eyes narrow, but she takes a slow breath and starts speaking slowly like she thinks the lost teeth mean you have some sort of brain damage as well. "Me and Mr. Pounce de Leon went out hunting. That's what you do when you get hungrrrrrry and want to have tasty eatings. And look: we brought you back this delicious and beautiful prongbeast so that you can have tasty eatings with us when you decide to stop being mean." She sort of bites out the last word in a way that draws attention to her really sharp little fangs and shakes the corpse at you. "We are your most pawesome friends."

That's. Really quite sweet, in an utterly gut-churningly repulsive sort of way. "You brought the mangled and bloody corpse of this once-noble animal here, into my respite block as some sort of" don't say courting gift, she's not an aristocrat, wouldn't even know what you were talking about, "present for me?" you check. The grin slides back over her pixy face. It's beautiful and horrifying in equal parts. "And you you wish for me to join you in consuming its flesh?"

"Purrretty much," she says, and scoots forward to flop next to you on the sitting-bag. Her bare arms brush yours and they're so warm that you lean into the touch even though she's smearing mud and other less savory substances over more of your skin. 

"I... see," you manage after a second, even if it comes out strangled a little by the way your throat is closed in pure disgust at the very idea. "You are aware, of course, that I do not typically consume animal flesh. It's not a practice I approve of, in general." You can't meet her eyes, but that doesn't stop you from hearing the little pained "oh" sound she makes. This isn't going at all according to plan. Your nails start shredding at the fabric of the seat between you two again.

Then Nepeta leans away from you like she intends to get up, possibly even to leave and that is simply not acceptable. "However, since you have gone to the effort of bringing it," you mumble hurriedly as she pauses, "I will accept your gift, _this time_ , in the spirit it is intended."

Nepeta crows, this little high-pitched sound of glee that you're fairly certain your vocal chords would be incapable of producing. "I knew you'd like it! I told Pounce, Equius is defurnitly the kind of guy who likes to be with furiends." She rubs her check against your arm and smiles again. Good. You get up, pulling a spare towel from your sylladex before you touch the door to your room because you are filthy at the moment and refuse to pollute your living space any further than it already is.

When you unlock the door, your lusus is already waiting in the hallway, knees folded under himself in that sleepy patient way he has sometimes. He gives you an "I am very disappointed with you," sort of look that you almost resent except that the bruises haven't faded entirely yet from his face and so you let it go. In any case, Nepeta's lusus--Pounce de Leon? Honestly what kind of name is that for a lusus--takes advantage of Aurthour being so close to the ground to twine around him and then leap up onto Aurthour's back, purring. It's just sound to you, but apparently it means something to Aurthour because he comes inside just enough to retrieve the poor dead thing in your room before the both of them disappear towards the nutritional block.

Nepeta drapes herself over your back, peeking playfully at you from somewhere near your rib cage."You and I are filthy," you tell her, leaning forward a little to let her balance more easily. "We are going to clean ourselves before doing anything else."

Nepeta scrunches her nose confusedly at you in a way that you consider to be objectively adorable, but just shrugs and nods back at you after a second. "Sure, if that's what you want." You breathe a little sigh of relief that she understands at least this much of propriety.

Which is precisely when she decides to lean over further and lick your cheek. Every muscle goes tense, caught between the urge to jerk back away from her and the need not to hurt her, strung so tight you're trembling faintly when you ask, "What are you..."

Nepeta is giving you the nose-scrunchy face again, but it's hard to pay attention to how cute it is when you're panicking over whether you've read this entire situation wrong, what you'll do if she's actually flushed for you because that would be an utter mess, and... "What? You said you wanted a wash." She pulls you down closer to her level by one shoulder and you let her, unwilling to resist and cause her harm. When you're crouched down she gives you another little meowbeast lick, right across the jut of your cheekbone. "Honestly, a guy like you, you're pretty lucky you've got a purrrrson like me to look after you, if you don't even know about washing up."

It startles an honest laugh out of you, all the panic and the tension that felt like they'd been building for days just draining out of your body all at once. "That is a true statement. Nepeta, I", her soft little tongue curls over the edge of your jaw, but you still want to say it, want to make certain you understand each other, even if you're not quite certain of the words. "I intend to take you as my moirail," you blurt out, and then wince internally because that was not at all the kind of thing a girl wants to hear. Why is this so much harder than it looks? "I will however allow you to object, if you wish, and I will not speak of this again."

Nepeta just curls closer over your shoulders, nuzzling her nose against the soft vulnerable skin of your throat and you don't even mind. Her rounded little horns bump against your chin. "Equius is a silly head," she tells you seriously and for a second you feel like someone has dumped an entire cartridge of coolant into your veins, except that she continues, leans over to lick the tip of your nose. "You've been my moirail for ages, silly. Too late to back out now."

You can feel the helpless little smile tugging at your lips and you really simply cannot help it, so what you do instead is very carefully flip Nepeta upside down over your shoulder so that her rats-mane hair falls over her face and she can't see you. You can feel the little hitches in her chest as she laughs at you, and she's wiggling in a way that makes it a little difficult to hold on to her. But you would never drop her. You carry her into the bath chamber like she's more delicate than glass, than the finest copper wire, this infinitely precious being. You pity her so much you feel sick with it, and can only hope she knows because the only thing you manage to get out of your mouth is a stern command to sit still and let you clean her up properly.

For a second you just look at her. Her clothes are a complete write-off, should probably be burned instead of even trying to wash them, though of course you won't. They look like she sewed them herself by hand. Still, there's no way she's getting cleaned up without taking them off. You have absolutely no idea how one asks a young lady--one's _girlfriend_ if only newly--to just...disrobe. It sounds so unseemly in your head, and you can feel the blood staining your cheeks even without trying to say it aloud. You turn and fiddle with the adjustment panel for the water shower so you don't have to look at her. "You'll, ah." You cough, a little. "I'll lend you some of my clothes, to wear,um. After."

There's a little giggle behind you at that, though, and you hear the sound of fabric hitting your tile and this is without a doubt the most embarrassing moment of your entire life to date. "You're worrying about stuff you don't need to, huh," she accuses playfully. You turn around and she's just sitting there, naked as a wiggler and utterly shameless on the counter of your sink. And. Right. Okay, fine. If she's not embarrassed then you simply won't let yourself be either. That is definitely a thing that works.

You nod, decisively, and lift her down from the ledge even though you know she could get down just fine on her own, and point her towards the shower while you undress and try to get yourself together. You tug your shirt off without thinking and it tears a little on the jagged edge of your broken horn. You're still trying to figure out how to get the ripped fibers unhooked without simply shredding your shirt when you hear the whine behind you. 

Nepeta is poised on the pads of her feet just outside the water's spray, nose scrunched. "Bluh, Equius," she whines when she notices you've turned to watch her. "Do we really have to do it this way?"

You don't even dignify that with a reply, giving her as stern a look as you can manage with your shirt still hanging off of your horn. Somehow, Nepeta does not seem to be impressed.

"We're going to get all wet," she informs you, as though this were the most dire of punishments, with one hand braced on her hip. "We're going to get wet, and then our _hair_ will be wet, and we'll probably catch colds. And we'll be _wet_."

You quirk one eyebrow. She rolls her eyes at you and pads closer. Very gently, she reaches up and starts tugging at where the cloth is caught, offers enticingly, "We don't have to use your silly rain-ablution mechanism. I could still wash you like normal people do, even if you don't know how. It's okay. I could teach you."

And for a minute, you do almost consider it: you think about the scratchy-soft trace of her tongue over your cheekbone, how it might feel to let her curl herself around you and nuzzle your face, your shoulders...Except that you've got blood and dirt smeared all along your chest, down low over your belly from where she'd dropped the poor prongbeast in your lap and that thought is. Well. Completely horrifying, quite frankly. 

"Absolutely not," you tell her, and you don't even care how scandalized it comes out sounding. A bead of sweat drips down the back of your neck and you find yourself grateful you'll soon be under the shower. You suspect you're going to need it. Nepeta sticks her tongue out at you, pulling a face like a barely-pupated wiggler, and lets your shirt drop to the bathroom floor. Her arms are still looped around your neck. 

Greatly daring, you crook one arm to offer her a sitting place, barely having to lean down at all given how she's already up on her toes and bracing her weight on your shoulders, and she climbs up your side like she would a tree, blithely unconcerned at the way you could crush her small frame without even trying. Instead of flinching away from you in fear or disgust, she snuggles closer against your side and buries her irritated little growl in the hollow of your shoulder as you carry her under the spray.

For a few long seconds, all you do is stand under the spray and let the water rinse the sticky mess of yellow blood and sweat-muddied dirt off your bodies. It feels _magnificent_. And then, careful not to unbalance her or move too quickly, you shift so that the water pours down over Nepeta's hair instead. It's so thick and course that the water barely penetrates it; you have to reach over with your spare hand and lift sections of it so that it actually all gets wet, and Nepeta lets you even though she's still making that sulky little "hrrrrnnnn" sound up against your shoulder. When you duck your head under the spray you have to tilt your shoulder awkwardly to avoid spraying her face, but she leans with you perfectly to balance the weight and you get your own hair wet quickly and easily enough.

Once you've gotten the both of you rinsed and are starting to look around rather helplessly at the soaps and things, wondering how one washes hair with one hand but still unwilling to put her down, that's when Nepeta deigns to lift her head from your shoulder. Imperiously as a highblood, she points demandingly at the shampoo. You hesitate. She's only a green-blood, and lower than jade at that; it wouldn't do to let her think she could order you. And yet...well. She IS your moirail. Indulging favored subordinates is a pleasure of nobility, isn't it? You look over at her through wet lashes. Nepeta isn't even demanding anymore, just sitting on your forearm and waiting patiently for you to do what she wants you to and, oh. You quite literally think your blood-pusher may be melting into milk-pale slush right now. You want to hug her _so badly_.

Instead, you bite at the corners of your lips to keep from smiling and reach over to hand her the bottle of shampoo. Wordless, she nuzzles approvingly against your cheekbone and pours a bit into her palm, handing the bottle back to you when she's done like you're a conveniently placed shelf. Very gently, you move one of your fingers to pet side-long against her thigh where you're supporting her weight.

You'd half expected her to drop the whole lot of it on your head, pile your hair up on your skull and rub in that way where your hair would tangle and snarl and fall annoyingly in your face for days. But she doesn't. Long-clawed fingers work the lather very gently through your hair from scalp to ends and scratch lightly at your skin in a way that makes your subvocal hum-box start to rumble. 

Eventually you can feel her weight shift where she's leaning back away from you and you let your eyes blink open. She gestures towards the spray, and it only takes you a moment to realize you need to rinse. You step under the water and feel the little hitch in her side from laughing at you. This time, when she points at the conditioner, you fetch it for her without delay.

Once she's finished, you have to set her down to free your hands. She slips down your hip until her feet just brush the ground, toes curling around the edges of the tile and leans her forehead against your chest. Her hair really is a disgrace, you think, trying to get the soap to work its way through the entire mass. Someday, you imagine, you might offer to cut it for her. It's much too soon for something like that--you can't even imagine asking her to allow you to stand behind her and hold blades at her neck, though the thought makes you feel hot and prickly down your spine--but one day, when you're both older and you've taught her over those years to trust you that much...

Nepeta is fidgeting under your hands, shifting her weight between the balls of her feet back and forth while you wool-gather, though she never quite moves far enough to duck away from your fingers. You reach over her shoulders to rinse the suds from your hands and see about pouring an entire palmful of conditioner while she stands in the spray. When you look up from the bottle though, she's standing there half-cloaked in steam with her rib bones sticking out and her skin covered in dozens of long scars and you almost cannot breathe. You would kill the Empress herself to keep this girl safe. She bops you on your nose.

She submits to having the conditioner put into her hair ("It's already clean! No blood or sticks or anything! What more do you want?") only because she can work the soapy washcloth over you while you do so. She starts with what she can reach, smoothing the residue of filth off the planes of your chest and belly, over along the muscles in your arms. "Lift your arm higher," she orders, stroking along your side, or "turn around," to get at your back. When she's washed as much of you as she can reach, she tugs at a lock of your hair and tells you, "kneel down, Equius." It's... very pleasant to know precisely what she wants from you. She makes her expectations so clear. You go down to your knees for her and think, as she carefully wipes away the sweat and blood and dirt off your cheeks, that you have never been so relaxed as you are right now. You close your eyes and let the water pour over your face like a benediction. 

When you open your eyes, Nepeta is blinking up at you with half a toothy grin and she has water droplets clinging to her eyelashes. You press a kiss to her forehead because you feel like you might die if you don't and spread the soap over her narrow shoulders. Her breasts are tiny, and there is a set of long scars like troll-claws tearing across the left one. Knowing Nepeta, whoever did that is probably dead already, but you make a note to ask about it later on the off chance you need to kill them instead. You trace the hollows of her razorblade hips and the lean muscle of her thighs and the little dip in the back of her knee from where it must have been broken once upon a time. You wash in between each and every one of her toes, while she stands with one hand braced on your shoulder for balance. 

And once she's rinsed the last of the soap off and shut off the water, you swipe a little lick right along the curve of her jaw, kitten-awkward, before you stand. She's squeaking incoherent noises of delight in your general direction, and you reach out for the towels so she won't see you blush. You wrap the first one around her shoulders, tucking it up under her chin and lifting her hair free so that it won't drip down her back, and only then do you casually tie your own around your hips.

Nepeta immediately steals it and takes off running towards your respite block. It startles a laugh out of you, and you cough a little to try and hide it. You can see her peeking out at you from behind your own door as you walk straight-backed down the hallway. It wouldn't do to let her think she could fluster you. Nepeta is giggling.

Later, when she's got a pair of your pants belted tight around her hips and an old green jacket of yours which you suspect rather strongly that you won't be getting back and both of you have eaten all the roasted prongbeast you could stomach, you will whisper something into the muffling mass of her hair, arms curled loosely over her shoulders because you don't dare hold her tighter. It will come out quiet and raw from the way your voice breaks halfway through it and you will bite a shallow tear in your lip to stop yourself from taking it back.

"Pale for you too," Nepeta will reply.


End file.
